


Hidden Game

by sleeperservice



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 09:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeperservice/pseuds/sleeperservice
Summary: Esa's Swedish is better than he thinks, but his intuition is just slightly off."All right, I'll settle down, you don't play PC games and there are many Klingberg family injokes that are not to be shared with Lindells, especially nosy ones who are with you for eight months a year and know everything else about you."





	Hidden Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/gifts).



> Nadler and I had discussed this fic idea for so long, and now I finally got to write it! Thanks for wanting this prompt in exchanges!

Esa sat down next to John in the dining room. They had talked enough hockey during the practice that morning, so Esa had to find a new tack of conversation. He felt chatty that day.

"So I hear you're into Korean roleplaying games?" Esa asked.

John wrinkled his nose. "Like, computer games or the stuff you act out? Neither. What gave you that idea?"

"I overheard you talking with your dad on the trip and you said something about a treaty with the Korean fairies, and about keeping stuff safe? You know my Swedish isn't that great. A couple of guys I knew in school were really into those MMOs, and the Korean ones were supposed to be awesome but you needed to be a Korean citizen to play most of them, which sucked. So Swedes get to play them now and Finns don't, huh?"

"Esa. You were not supposed to understand that conversation at all, not just because you think you're not good at Swedish."

"You were speaking Swedish, and I understood something. But I take it that it was not the correct something." Esa was puzzled.

"It's nothing. You'll go away and you'll forget we had this little talk, all right?" John waved his hand in front of Esa's face.

"Quit clowning. I really really really want to know. Now you're making it all secret and that just makes me more curious, okay?"

John's eyes widened to an extreme. Esa thought John's eyes were already big enough, but this was taking it to the next level. He looked all pointy, too, even more so than usual, down to his teeth. "Why aren't you going away?"

"Because," Esa gestured at his plate, "I am trying to eat my lunch, and you already know by now that trying to make me go away will do the exact opposite. I am persistent, tenacious, and possibly very annoying."

John muttered something in Swedish. Esa thought he understood it.

"So you're saying that I've got that correct. Am I correct?"

"Yes, you are. I still don't know what has happened here."

"All right, I'll settle down, you don't play PC games and there are many Klingberg family injokes that are not to be shared with Lindells, especially nosy ones who are with you for eight months a year and know everything else about you."

John started to laugh, a nervous titter. "You think you know about me!"

"Yes, I do. And you...you don't look right all of a sudden, but you've been not looking right all this year. You look really weird."

"All right. I'll let you know what we were talking about, but not in this dining room! We'll finish eating and then we have to go somewhere private. You can know; as you've said, you know everything else about me already, but I can't risk this getting out."

"Oooh, you're a international superspy. Now I know why you thought I looked like James Bond."

"Ha. No."

They finished their lunch quietly, then John hastily pulled Esa away to a maintenance closet in a secluded corridor.

Esa thought this was absolutely ridiculous. "All this secrecy. You must be a spy. You've used this before for other stuff. Or maybe it's a quick change into the Superman outfit?"

"Now you're clowning too much. No. But close. You weren't supposed to have heard that conversation because we thought it was warded. Your Swedish is fine. None of the other players who speak Swedish on the team heard it. Just you."

"'Warded?' What is that supposed to mean?" Esa shook his head.

John inhaled deeply. "It means we used magic to make sure we couldn't be heard. And what you heard was a conversation about the preparations for the Olympics. I'm obviously not going and my brothers probably aren't going either but there are others...like us...on the Swedish national teams and we had to make sure we could go and not get into some sort of war with the Korean folk like us. You know, the hidden folk."

Esa blinked. "Like...you guys are real? I never liked fairy tales much. But that explains a lot. Like how you look. Is that really how you look, big-eyed and pointy and probably really scary in the dark? Your teeth."

"I noticed you looking at me eating lunch today and I figured you could see how I really look. This is why my dad was worried about us playing hockey with humans for so long, and it's why I'm the only one playing in North America still. The closer you get to a human, the more they can really see you."

"And we've been D partners for a long time. So I got really close to you, I guess, and this is why I can hear and see you, and probably why you couldn't make me forget that I saw or heard something."

"Because you've already seen and heard it for so long. I can't use illusions on you. I can use them on the rest of the team, but not you. Dad was worried that my powers were fading, a prince of our people should have really strong powers, but now I can tell him it's just because I have a really good friend whom I trust." John smiled at him.

Esa smiled back. "I'm glad that you could trust me, too. And who would I tell? And who would believe me? They'd just think I was playing too many PC games."

"If I want magic, I go home. The only game I want to play right now is hockey." John clapped Esa on the back and they walked out of the closet, back to the real world.


End file.
